A DIREFUL THREAT
Perhaps Washington White's Shanghai rooster did not care to make the
trip to the moon, or perhaps the fowl had not yet seen enough of this
earth. At any rate, when he flew from the projectile, uttering loud
crows, and landed some distance away, he began to run back toward the
coop in the rear of the yard.
"Cotch him, cotch him!" yelled the colored man. "Dat's a valuable bird!"
"We'll get him when he goes in the coop," said Jack, who found it
difficult to run and laugh at the same time.
"Shall I fire my rifle off and scare him?" asked Andy Sudds.
"No, you might kill him or scare him t' death," objected Washington.
"Come on, Mark, and help," cried Jack, looking toward the projectile,
where a figure was peering from the glass-covered port of the main
cabin.
But the figure, whose hand was done up in voluminous bandages, did not
come out, and Jack wondered the more at what he thought was a growing
strangeness on the part of his chum.
Jack, followed by Andy and Washington, raced off after the rooster,
while the two professors, somewhat amused, rather chaffed at the delay.
But afterward they were glad of it.
"Just my luck!" muttered the bandaged one. "This delay comes at the
wrong time. Why don't they go on without that confounded rooster? If we
stay here too long, that fellow Mark may get loose and spoil the whole
thing, or Jenkins may go and release him before the time set. It would
be just like Jenkins! I've a good notion to start the projectile
myself. I know how to operate the Cardite motor. Only I suppose those
two professors are on guard in the engine room. I'll have to wait until
they catch that rooster, I guess, but I'd like to wring his neck!"
The chase after the fowl was kept up.
"I've got him now!" cried Jack a little later, as the fowl, evidently
now much exhausted, ran into another fence corner, where Jack caught
him, and shut him up in the coop in the projectile.
"Yo' suttinly am de mos' contrary-minded specimen ob de chicken fambly
dat I eber seed," observed Washington, breathing heavily, for his run
had winded him.
"Well, are we all ready to start now?" asked Professor Henderson. "No
more live stock loose, is there, Jack?"
"I think not."
"Where's Mark? Wasn't he helping you catch the rooster?"
"No, he's inside. Shall I seal the door?"
"Yes, and I'll tell Professor Roumann that we're about to start. All
ready for the moon trip!"
Jack was pulling the steel portal toward him. An eager face, peering
from a port, waited anxiously for the tremor which would indicate that
the projectile had left the earth. In another moment they would be off.
But what was that sound coming from down the highway. A steady
chug-chug--a sort of roar, as of a battery of rapid-fire guns going off
in double relays! And, mingled with the explosions, there was a voice
shouting:
"Wait! Hold on! Don't go without me! I'm Mark Sampson! Don't start the
projectile!"
"Somebody must be in a mighty hurry on a motorcycle," thought Jack, as
he paused a moment before fastening the door. Then the shouts came to
his ears.
"Mark Sampson!" he cried.
Again came the cry: "Wait! Wait! Don't go without me! You've got that
mysterious man on board!"
"Mark Sampson!" murmured Jack again. "That's his voice sure enough! I
wonder--can it be possible--that man--with his head all bandaged
up--his queer actions--I--I----"
Words failed the youth. Throwing wide open the door, he sprang out of
the projectile. A moment later there dashed into the yard, where the
great projectile rested, a strange figure astride of a puffing
motorcycle. The figure was torn and, ragged, and the nondescript
garments were covered with dust, for Mark had had a fall. But there was
no mistaking the face that peered eagerly forward.
"Jack!" cried the youth on the machine.
"Mark!" ejaculated the lad who had sprung from the projectile. "What
has happened? Who is the fellow who has been masquerading as you?"
"A scoundrel and a villain! Let me get at him!" and, slamming on the
brakes, as he shut off the power, Mark leaped from the motorcycle,
stood it up against the projectile, and clasped his chum by the hand.
"What's the matter?" asked Professor Henderson, as he, too, ran out of
the _Annihilator_. "What does that tramp want, Jack? Give him some
money, and get back in here; we ought to have started long ago." He
looked at the ragged figure.
"This isn't a tramp," cried Jack. "It's Mark!"
"Mark! I thought----"
"There have been strange doings," gasped the lad in tramp's garments.
"I have just escaped from being kept a prisoner. Where is the
mysterious man? Oh, I'm glad I arrived in time! Were you about to
start?"
"That's what we were," replied Jack. "Oh, Mark, but I'm glad to see you
again! I didn't know what to think. You acted so strange--or, rather,
the fellow we thought was you had me guessing!"
"Good land a' massy!" exclaimed Washington White, as he stood in the
doorway, with Andy Sudds behind him. "Am dere two Marks? What's up,
anyhow?"
"Don't let that fellow get away--the fellow who passed himself off as
me!" shouted Mark. "Lock him up! There's some mystery about him that
must be explained. He's a dangerous man to be at large."
Professor Henderson turned back to enter the projectile. Jack advised
Andy to get his gun ready, with which to threaten the scoundrel in case
of necessity.
At that instant there sounded a crash of glass, and the whole front of
the big observation window in the side of the _Annihilator_ was smashed
to atoms. A figure leaped--a figure which no longer had its head
bandaged, and whose arm was no longer in a sling--the figure of a
man--the mysterious man who had held Mark a prisoner!
"There he goes!" shouted Jack. "Catch him, somebody! Andy, where's your
gun?"
"I'll have it in a jiffy!" cried the hunter, as he dashed back to get
it.
But the man did not linger. Scrambling to his feet after his fall,
caused by his leap from the broken window, which he had smashed with a
sledge hammer as soon as he understood that his game was up, he raced
out of the yard. He turned long enough to shake his fist at the group
assembled around the projectile, and then leaped away, calling out some
words which they could not hear.
"Let's take after him," proposed Mark.
"Come on," seconded Jack.
"No, let him go; he's a desperate man, and you came just in time to
unmask him," said Professor Henderson. "He might harm you if you took
after him. Let him go. He has not done much damage. We can easily
replace the broken window. But I can't understand what his object was
in disguising himself as Mark. He certainly looked like you, Mark,
especially when he kept his face concealed. Why did he do it?"
"He wanted to go to the moon in my place," answered the former prisoner
of the deserted house.
"But why?" insisted Jack.
"Because, I think, he's crazy, and he didn't really know what he did
want. But he certainly had me well concealed," spoke Mark. "I'm free
now, however, and as soon as I get some decent clothes on I'll go with
you to the moon. I wouldn't want the moon people to see me dressed this
way."
"How did it happen?" asked Jack. "Tell us all about it. My! but I
certainly have been puzzled since you--or rather since the person we
thought was you--came back last night all bunged up. Give us the story."
"I will; give me a chance. I guess that villain is gone for good." Andy
Sudds came out with his gun, and insisted on taking a look down the
road and around the premises. The man was nowhere in sight.
"Now we're in for another delay," remarked Jack ruefully, as he gazed
at the smashed window. "It seems as if we'd never get started for the
moon."
"Oh, yes, we will," declared Professor Henderson. "We have some extra
heavy plate glass in the shop, and we can soon put in another
observation window."
"Let's get right to work then," proposed Jack. "That man may come back.
Did you learn who he was, Mark?"
"No, he wouldn't tell his name, and he said he was doing this to get
revenge on us for some fancied wrong. I can't imagine who he is. But
let's work and talk at the same time. I'll tell you all that happened
to me," which he did briefly.
Mark soon got rid of the tramp clothes, and donned an extra suit which
had been packed in his trunk in the projectile. Then he helped replace
the broken window, which, in spite of their haste, took nearly all the
rest of the day to put in place.
"Shall we wait and start to-morrow?" asked Jack, when four o'clock
came. "It will soon be dark."
"Darkness will make no difference to us," announced Professor Roumann.
"Our Cardite motor will soon take us out of the shadow of the earth,
and we will be in perpetual sunshine until we reach the moon. As we are
all ready, we might as well start now."
They all agreed with this, and, after a final inspection of the
projectile, the travellers entered it, and Jack was once more about to
seal the big door.
Before he could do so there came riding into the yard, on his
motorcycle, which he had claimed that afternoon, Dick Johnson.
"Wait a minute," he cried. "I've got a letter for you. It's from that
man!"
"What--another thing to delay us?" cried Jack, but he called to
Professor Roumann not to start the motor, and ran to take from Dick the
letter which the lad held out.
"That same man who gave me the one for Mark gave me this, and he paid
me a half a dollar to bring it here," said the boy.
"All right," answered Jack impatiently.
He looked at the note. It was addressed to the "Moon Travellers," and,
considering that he was one, the youth tore open the envelope. In the
dim light of the fading day he read the bold handwriting.
"I have fixed you," the letter began. "You will never get to the moon.
I shall have my revenge. You took my brother Fred Axtell to Mars and
left him there. I determined to get him back, and to that end I
disguised myself as one of the boys, and got aboard. When we were
safely away from the earth, I would have compelled you to go to Mars
and rescue my brother. But my plan has failed. I will have my revenge,
though. You will never reach the moon, even if you do get started.
Beware! George, the brother of Fred Axtell, will avenge his fate!"
"The brother of the crazy machinist!" gasped Jack. "Now I understand
his strange actions. He's crazy, too--he wanted to go to Mars--he says
we will never reach the moon! Say, look here!" cried Jack, raising his
voice. "Here's bad news! That scoundrel has put some game up on us!
Maybe he's tampered with the machinery! It won't be safe to start for
the moon until we've looked over everything carefully! He says he's
fixed us, and perhaps he has!"
From the projectile came hurrying the would-be moon travellers, a vague
fear in their hearts.